A lot of work is in store to examine in detail airplane components, decode and analyze data of flight recorders, the head of the Rosaviatsia Federal Air Transport Agency says

Site of Russian Airbus A321 crash in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula

MOSCOW, November 2./TASS/. Statements of Kogalymavia carrier about external influence on the Airbus A321 that crashed in Sinai on Saturday are premature and unfounded, the head of the Rosaviatsia Federal Air Transport Agency, Alexander Neradko, told Rossiya 24 television on Monday.

"This statement is premature and is not founded on any real facts," he said. "A lot of work is in store to examine in detail airplane components, decode and analyze data of flight recorders. It is premature and there are no grounds for drawing any conclusions about the reason of plane’s disintegrating in mid-air," he said.

Kogalymavia Flight 9268 came down about half-an-hour after leaving the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh for the Russian city of St. Petersburg. The disaster site is 100 kilometres south of the administrative center of North Sinai Governorate, the city of Al-Arish. All 224 aboard the plane perished.